A BUS user and former councillor has hit out at First Worcestershire’s changes to the county service that come into force this weekend.

From Sunday the number of 144 and 144A services running between Birmingham and Bromsgrove are being reduced, down to hourly throughout the week - a reduction from every 30 minutes.

It means some users of the service, that operates under the Salt Road name, will find the buses terminate at Bromsgrove, with a wait for another bus to Birmingham or Worcester, or looking for an alternative.

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After hearing of the changes Droitwich resident John Cook, a former Spa councillor and now retired, said it would affect a number of people.

“The services are so essential to people like me, the disabled, students and people who work,” he said.

“They will say ‘no one was using it’ but look at the cost, and people are fed up with the buses. Where has been the adverts? I asked a driver what were the changes, he said ‘don’t ask me’. When they changed the name they had a big promotional event outside the Guildhall.”

Nigel Eggleton, First Worcester managing director, said: “We are reducing the frequency of our Salt Road route between Birmingham and Bromsgrove from this coming weekend to try and address some of the reliability problems we have been experiencing with regular pockets of congestion in the Birmingham area. In addition, we have been monitoring the level of demand between the four main locations along the route being Worcester, Droitwich, Bromsgrove and Birmingham, with the latter two locations consistently having a lot less people travelling between them.

“However, since we have publicised the upcoming changes, a few people have contacted us with concerns about timings to Bromsgrove College and other locations in the morning and afternoon - peak times of the day - which we are looking at with the possibility of making a few adjustments in due course.”